reverence with which punishments should be employed; and the sixth and last is addressed to future generations, and directs them to the ancient models, in order that punishments may never be but a blessing to the kingdom.
A Chinese critic says that throughout the Book 'virtue' and 'exact adaptation' are the terms that carry the weight of the meaning. Virtue must underlie the use of punishments, of which their exact adaptation will be the manifestation.
1. In reference to the charge to (the marquis of) Lü:—When the king had occupied the throne till he reached the age of a hundred years, he gave great consideration to the appointment of punishments, in order to deal with (the people of) the four quarters.
2. The king said, 'According to the teachings of ancient times, Khih Yû was the first to produce disorder, which spread among the quiet, orderly people, till all became robbers and murderers, owl-like and yet self-complacent in their conduct, traitors and villains, snatching and filching, dissemblers and oppressors[1].'
'Among the people of Miâo, they did not use the power of goodness, but the restraint of punishments. They made the five punishments engines of oppression[2], calling them the laws. They
- ↑ Khih Yû, as has been observed in the Introduction, p. 27, is the most ancient name mentioned in the Shû, and carries us back, according to the Chinese chronologists, nearly to the beginning of the twenty-seventh century B.C. P. Gaubil translates the characters which appear in the English text here as 'According to the teachings of ancient times' by 'Selon les anciens documents,' which is more than the Chinese text says.—It is remarkable that at the commencement of Chinese history, Chinese tradition placed a period of innocence, a season when order and virtue ruled in men's affairs.
- ↑ I do not think it is intended to say here that 'the five punishments' were invented by the chiefs of the Miâo; but only that
